Humans lack the education to understand modern, high-tech media

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In recent years there have been a spate of stories about the impact of the internet, high-tech gizmos, and the orgiastic deluge of multimedia on our brains. Basically, the human brain is an incredibly-flexible, ever-malleable tool that can alter its capabilities depending on your lifestyle. Someone who does a lot of physical work might have a larger parietal lobe, while a philosopher or writer might literally have a bulging frontal lobe. If you use the internet a lot — if you spend most of your life inside a web browser — your brain changes. Your short term memory might decrease — you are effectively offloading your memory to your computer’s RAM, and your brain reacts accordingly — but in exchange, your cranial capacity for other task will improve.

In short, we might appear dumbed down or stupid in the eyes of our parents, but our brains are simply not built to excel at the same tasks that they’re good at. Your dad might be able to cut down a tree, but does he know Google-fu?

Unfortunately, though, a new study shines a light on a different but inexorably linked problem: Our brains might be the masters of parsing the latest lolcat image or sneezing panda video, but we lack the training to actually make logical, intelligent, and competent inferences from the multimedia that we consume. In other words, modern technology has enabled near-real-time news reporting and beautiful, CGI-rendered movies and commercials, but we’re very poorly equipped to actually analyze the meaning of what we’re experiencing.

The study was conducted in Spain, and so there will be some societal differences between the paella-gobbling siesta lovers and Americans, but the findings are still significant. In essence, people lack the necessary knowledge to critically reflect on what they’ve just seen or heard. People don’t know enough about the production methods and technologies used to create an advert or game (green screens, CGI, Photoshop touch-up), or how they are being specifically targeted by tracking cookies, advertising stereotypes, and so on. Without the correct faculties to break down how the message was created, we are simply prey for broadcasters.

Furthermore, on a more subjective level, the study identified an extreme inability to evaluate the message of the multimedia. “We found that people have serious difficulties defending their opinions regarding the media universe and to discern that media messages are carriers of values and contents,” says Alejandra Walzer, one of the study’s researchers. In other words, the study has put its finger squarely on the reason why people vehemently stand by their political or ideological stance, but usually um, ah, spit, and splutter when actually asked to defend that point of view: They’re just parroting the alluring multimedia that they consume. This observation also neatly explains why a lot of people, when challenged on a topic they feel passionately about, resort to throwing around meaningless phrases like “fanboy” in the hope that their lack of critical reasoning ability won’t be noticed.

What can we do to fix this problem, then? The obvious solution is to bring schooling kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The fact is, education reform is one of the slowest and cumbersome wings of government — you don’t want to mess up an entire crop of kiddies, after all — and schools, at the moment, just don’t produce adults that are properly tech savvy. It isn’t enough to be able to use a smartphone to look up the best candy store in town or check the balance of your bank account — we need to know how the underlying technology actually works. Schooling isn’t going to be fixed any time soon, though, so the best bet is a grassroots movement. As a bona fide tech geek, you are perfectly positioned to teach your friends and family about the technology behind the modern, multimediated society — so get to it!

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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7QOBZ26TQDSDXR4AR4H7LTE2TI John

I’ve thought of this for years. The mind can only hold so much before something gets replaced(forgotten). A great example of this is my generation being horrible spellers. My parents always rag on me for not being able to spell well. I’m still able to effectively communicate, and i have spell check on my side. Basically we are outsourcing parts of our cognitive memory to computers. Now my parents on the other hand can spell well but can barley cut and past and don’t do well with mathematics. I’ve noticed that they don’t like to spend time learning new things because they feel like they have to memorize them. This isn’t true because we have google to search for new information and store old information. You basically just need to learn the basics and everything else you can look up and relearn in minutes. Relearning something for my parents requires a trip to the library or asking a friend. Its inefficient and will often lead to them giving up.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk Sebastian Anthony

Yep — just regarding spelling… I am generally very good, but I actually find myself checking almost every word in Google, just to make sure. Spellcheckers are no doubt partially to blame…

Lupius

Sounds like nonsense to me.

How many of us actually understand, or need to understand, the entire process of printing a newspaper? How many of us realize to what extent our thoughts are manipulated by reading the newspaper? This effect is purely sociological/psychological and has nothing to do with technology.

Anonymous

If I had no idea how a newspaper was made I might think things like that a newspaper was created solely for me, its articles contain only proven fact, and is infallible because it is written word. Sounds crazy, but only because we all know how newspapers work, that’s not the point of the article or the study.

New age digital media is not as well understood by most people. Commercials are filled with CGI, digitally enhanced models, persuasive dialogue, and a vast sea of subliminal sales techniques. And before you can even really stop and think another commercial immediately starts playing to occupy your brain. Without knowing how a commercial is made, some people can’t separate the fact from the digitally created fantasy. The line is further blurred by how subtle the difference usually is. Just look at any makeup or beauty product commercial. They look real but do you think any of those models faces actually look like that up close in person? To a lot of people sitting at home not really concentrating on analyzing what they’re immediately seeing they probably don’t even realize what they’re seeing is fake. Being able to analyze how a commercial is produced is to be able to step back and think “there’s no way that beauty product does THAT.”

I think maybe you were taking the part about understanding the process too literally. Obviously you don’t need to know how the paper of a newspaper is made, or how a TV signal reaches your house, but how the message carried by the newspaper or TV was created is what’s important.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk Sebastian Anthony

Thanks — you took the words out of my mouth.

Anonymous

People People~! I love this site and yes, all of you are correct. But think for one second what makes us see, our brain not our eyes. When I go to sleep colors and objects are more vivid and actually I would call it the 4th Dimension in dream state, because I can move time only in my sleep I say. I was thinking how my math teachers said only computers see in the 4 dimension, I agreed at first but our brains our faster then computers whats holding us back? Think of your brain like a motherboard, your eyes would be a webcam hooked up to a USB port, now sending that to you processor plus storing it and using in your brain to comprehend what you are seeing plus what your are thinking with all your emotions on top of that is purely information overload. We don’t need to now the wavelength of color its to much information so our brains sort it out so we can focus on our normal task of survival. So when you go to sleep do this if you don’t believe my theory, when you close your eyes you will see black, but as you slowly shut your brain down, eyes, touch, smell, not ears your brain will go from Alpha to Beta waves enabling you to sleep, but realization on what you are seeing can only be remembered in Alpha state, so here is where it gets tricky, you have to train yourself not to lose concentration between Alpha and Beta, I can’t tell you how long i’ve been able to do it for because time is not reflected in sleep its basically how fast your brain is working. But what you will see is far better then reality, far better then any CG in a movie, your brain can show u colors your eyes cant see. So information in dream state is not sorted like alpha state (when your awake look up brain waves). Thus when you wake up you will forget everything you have learned not only because of that because your brain is not recording it is merely looking at the information. I have been able to remember about3-4 seconds of my own dream state, and its simple all you do is tell yourself I will control my dream about a million times , write it down talk about it with someone and think about it all day before you go to sleep. I hope that works, in relation to this article which i got off track like me and my 9 grade writing level, I would say the brain can do anything but we as people are born in a monkey see monkey do environment from day one, and that’s why most of society cannot progress. Our brains adapt to society in a way where other sense and logic are not used, its in us all to find it, how i dunno you tell me, But you can bet your ass other logic in our brains are ether formed from brain plasticity via evolution, or its already their in our DNA. Read a “Brain that changes” did you know your brain is the only organ that can reverse its age? I just blew your minds!.

Richard Hundt

There’s the medium. And then there’s the message. Understanding the medium isn’t the problem. The problem has more to do with a change in the balance of the motivations behind the messages we receive, and the ease with which any fool can publish something which others will read. Take this comment as an example.

http://petercast.net Peterson Silva

I agree with the studies, but I don’t think “schooling” will do any good, because the education system as we know it is, itself, an alienation machine. Not only being obliged to study such things will, on the contrary, back a lot of people away from this kind of thinking. If we do not change the way we live, we won’t change the way we think — the two must come together; school (again, teaching as we know it in high schools) will do little to help change society.

Unless Spanish and American schools are very different from Brazilian schools…

Anonymous

Let me see if I understand you correctly,
when I look at 99.9% of what the internet has become, largely pornography and BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY ME! ads, my poor little brain is not up to the task? Bullshit. It’s called an off button sweetheart, you really should use it more often to remind yourself that you don’t exist to look at porn or, (to all you Keynsians), buy stuff super fast! What’s the point in trying to comprehend huge amounts of garbage at the speed of light when you can learn to be selective and actually enjoy living a real life… as a human, not a programmed consumer for someone who wants your money? As for education being flaky, yeah, that’s because kids are goofing off with computers learning how to plagiarize/regurgitate data rather than learning reading comprehension. It takes all of five mintues to learn how to google something if you know basic library skills (and can acutually read) , and less brain power than if you were using a real library. As for the wonders of multimedia… please spare me the pseudo sophistication, try looking out the damn window or actually doing something in the real world. Whoa dude, it’s like, so life like! Life is not virtual, or digital… It’s real time and analog, and it doesn’t take someone telling you what to think and buy really really fast in order to make sense of it, and you really shouldn’t be using your latest cell phone “app” to access your bank account or personal information if you have half a witt of understanding about security or what you are exposing yourself to. Find the off switch on your computer and learn what its for, then get a real life. You might be surprised how much you can learn in real time when your senses are not being overloaded with virtual white noise and you have time to think.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk Sebastian Anthony

I appreciate your passion for the old world, but… I’m afraid it really is on the way out.

If we can capture some essence of the old way of doing things, though, that’d be good :)

Joel

I am really taken aback by your description of reading books and using the library as part of the old world… it simply is not the case and is by far the best way to get information. Google is a great tool, but using it as a replacement for the library is a huge stretch. Use Google to find the book you actually need to read. Being able to critically think and retain while reading is really what our generation needs. Learning how to use a computer is in no way shape or form learning about technology. The more advanced computers become, the less the learning curve will be. That said, who is developing the hardware and software on these machines? How are they doing it? and who understands it down to the transistor level? Embedded systems are surrounding us and no one understands anything about them. That new iPhone you just bought. You have no idea how you would recreate something like that. I would say most of our generation is technologically aware. We understand how to use the tools people are developing. We know how to turn on a computer and open up our Word and Excel files, but beyond that we are hopelessly and utterly lost. What happens when you need a tool that doesn’t exist or doesn’t do exactly what you need? Simple, you write your own software and/or create your own PCB. You scour for reference manuals and datasheets and you critically think and interpret the technical information. People who think they are technically savvy because they’re “good with computers” end up working a POS because again all they can really do is point and click. Our society needs more people coming out of STEM fields plain and simple. There are far to many people who just sit back and consume media.

Andre Bermudez

I really agree with this study too. I’ve asked myself and come to the conclusion that people really don’t know much about the technology around them. One can blame the education system, but it’s just as easy as getting on youtube and watching videos on tech and programming. Then again, most of our politicians( or leaders in society) don’t know about technology themselves.

Andre Bermudez

I really agree with this study too. I’ve asked myself and come to the conclusion that people really don’t know much about the technology around them. One can blame the education system, but it’s just as easy as getting on youtube and watching videos on tech and programming. Then again, most of our politicians( or leaders in society) don’t know about technology themselves.

http://www.catchyreviews.com/ essay writing services forum

This is obvious that anyone who are addicted to the internet plus computer should get the hamper moment in any time of their life. Its could decrease the memory. Long time disorder in mental along with brain dissatisfaction. In order to get rid of it one has to beware to make proper use of it. Thanks a lot for sharing, funny picture but contemporary facts has been mentioned here.

LittleMouse

Well, you can’t blame them. This type of education is still significantly rare. And those who have this knowledge usually studied on their own. It’s rather sad how an average school can’t provide decent level of tech education. Of course, there is a reliable way for students to study at home but you have to be both diligent and keen to grasp it. And thus after the graduation people can’t do much when it comes to PC other than make a facebook post of watch a youtube video.

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